Un mundo feliz

Read in and for English class in school. Would likely not have read it on an other occasion, although the themes and things discussed are thought provoking, I didn't really enjoy the book.

Read this immediately afte reading the Orwell classic, 1984. I admit, I struggled reading this book. The method of story telling, with the switching of character perspective was difficult to follow. The idea of the book became far more clearer as the book progressed and became clear especially towards the end.

However the ideas presented in the book and their demonstration was thought provoking.

There is much to be learned from reading this book and it is easy to forget that it was written early in the last century, not this one. Sadly, the warnings Huxley offers about what society was becoming were largely ignored and we've come to a society that so closely mirrors his "civilization" that it could have been a metaphor about our current state of affairs written by a contemporary author.

It is a very short novel but full of warnings and lessons that are as applicable, or even more so, today as they were in 1930. It is a lesson in mass manipulation by the media and big pharma. It is a lesson in treating people ultimately as mere resource rather than persons. And it is a lesson in extremes, extreme pain v. extreme pleasure and the wrongheadedness in submitting to either.